


A Night Like This

by CarmenImbrium



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarmenImbrium/pseuds/CarmenImbrium
Summary: Juvia sighed and pulled on her raincoat. It seems like it’s always raining these days. [based on the song "Night Like This"]





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for a while, but today it demanded to be written, so I took a break from the screenplay I've been working on. I hope it isn't too OOC.

It was raining.

_Of course it’s raining._ Juvia sighed and pulled on her raincoat. _It seems like it’s always raining these days._ Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket.

_From: Lucy  
_ _Message: you’re coming right???_

She shot back a quick confirmation and grabbed her purse, dropping the phone inside one of the pockets. A rough semester had left Juvia in a constant bad mood, and because of that she’d taken to spending her evenings holed up in her room alone, but Lucy had talked her into meeting her and Cana at a bar downtown for a few drinks. Locking her door behind her, she jogged down the steps and walked down to the corner to catch a taxi.

The rain fell hard against the pavement, splashing onto her shoulders and boots and sending a chill through her veins. She shoved her hands farther into her coat pockets and sighed again. Car after car passed by, spraying raindrops onto the sidewalk, but not one of them was a taxi. Through the gentle roar of the heavy rain, she almost missed the sound of footsteps approaching her. She looked up to see a dark-haired man standing next to her, looking out at the street and holding an umbrella over his head.

“It’s so hard to get a cab this late,” he mumbled, just loud enough for her to hear, and she nodded in agreement. He shifted his umbrella to his other hand, the one closer to her. “You can stand under this too, you know.”

She reluctantly stepped to the side, just enough to get out of the rain. “Thank you, um…”

“I’m Gray.”

“Thank you, Gray.” She blushed a bit; standing closer to him allowed her to see his face better, and she had decided he was gorgeous. “Oh, aren’t you cold? You don’t have a coat on.”

He shrugged. “The cold doesn’t really bother me much. You know my name now, so what’s yours?”

“Juvia.”

“Where are you headed, Juvia?” He asked, looking down at her.

Juvia nervously adjusted her scarf and avoided his eyes. “Just downtown. Juvia is meeting some friends there.”

He hummed approvingly. “So am I. Well, going downtown, anyway. I’m not meeting your friends or anything.”

She giggled and a burst of confidence hit her. “Maybe we should share a ride.”

He smiled before scoffing sarcastically. “If one ever comes by.”

The two of them stood in silence for a while. She found it more comfortable than awkward, though. After a few minutes, the distinct yellow of a taxi cab came into view, and Gray stuck his free arm out to catch the driver’s attention. The cab stopped, and Gray opened the door, motioning for her to go in first. Juvia slid over to the far seat as Gray closed his umbrella and got in beside her. “The Starbucks downtown, please,” he said to the driver, who nodded and pulled back into traffic.

There wasn’t much space in the taxi, and they were close enough for their arms to touch. She fidgeted with the edge of her coat, trying not to make her nervousness obvious. “So, w-what are you going downtown for?” she asked, still not looking at him.

“A friend of mine had some kind of emergency with another friend, so I’m going to go watch his cat for a while,” Gray said. “He gets pretty antsy being by himself.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, what kind of cat is he?” In her excitement, she forgot about avoiding eye contact and turned slightly to face him.

“Natsu says he’s a Russian blue, but he meows so much I’d say he’s a Siamese.”

Juvia laughed. “Juvia’s roommate has a cat, too. He looks like a tiny panther, but he doesn’t meow too much. He’s very sweet.”

Gray smiled at her and shifted his hand to brush against hers. She froze for a moment, but didn’t move her hand. Her blush deepened, and his cheeks started to turn pink in response. He cleared his throat and looked out the window. “So, Juvia, what do you do for a living?”

“College,” she said. “Juvia is studying marine biology.”

“Cool.” He leaned his arm against the window and turned his head back towards her. “I’m an art major. Mostly sculpting, but some life drawing.”

“Juvia thought you would have been the model, not the artist,” she giggled a bit as she spoke, and his face flushed.

“I’ve never given that much thought.”

Her voice softened and she smiled warmly at him. “Juvia thinks you would be good at it.”

They fell into another short, easy silence, faces still red and hands still touching. _This feels nice_ , Juvia thought, still smiling to herself.

“I think we’re almost there,” Gray said, and Juvia’s heart sank. They had just met, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for their time together to end. He slid his hand over hers and their fingers slipped in between each other, and she squeezed gently as the taxi pulled up to the curb.

Gray sighed and pushed the door open, slowly untangling his hand from hers. She followed him out of the car and straightened her coat. Her phone vibrated in her purse, and she fished it out to respond to whatever message Lucy had sent her, but it slipped out of her hand as she unlocked it. Before she could react, Gray had caught it, but he didn’t give it back to her right away.

“What are you doing?” She asked, trying to grab her phone back.

He smirked and held it out of her reach. “Giving you my number. You should call me if you ever need someone to ride with again.”

“Oh.” Her face burned as she waited for him to finish typing. After a few seconds, he handed it back to her with a smile. “There,” he said, turning around and waving as he began to walk away. “I’ll see you.”

Juvia was frozen in place for a few minutes, blushing furiously and staring at her phone. Another text from Lucy startled her back to reality, and she shook her head furiously, trying to force her blush away. Taking one more look at the new contact, she took a deep breath and headed across the street to the bar, a light feeling filling her heart. She looked up at the night sky, and she realized that the rain had stopped falling.


End file.
